Painting The Town Red

With The Boy involved in his school's 25th Anniversary activities and Kiki attending her conference, I found myself alone, again, all day Saturday. It rained and rained, till about 9 p.m. I was waiting for The Boy to phone at 11:30 pm for a pick up. What to do till then so I don't fall asleep?

I went first to Shopper's Drug Mart because I was completely out of shampoo. The drug store at night is a little bit weird. Its patrons were decrepit looking people and me. The asylum inmates were having an outing. We wander up and down the aisles looking for beauty products. Some of them gurgled at each other as they passed.

A scruffy young man with glistening eyes stood at the end of an aisle and waxed eloquently about the benefits of bath beads and why they make the perfect gift for a bridal shower or Mother's Day. There were intermitten sounds of mumbling, like when you don't know the words to a song and you go, Mhmm mhmm mm. I am sure he was mimicking a TV commercial I had seen. When I gathered what I needed, I shook my head (whaa-eee-whaa-eee-whaa-ee) to wake up from the nightmare.

Then I went to Home Depot to look for plexiglass shelves for the bathroom. This is a 24 hour hardware store. I've been in before at night, but with The Man. Walking in by myself is a new expereince. There were many people there - men and women, some on their own, some in groups. How is it that so many people are gathered in a hardware store so late at night planning home improvement projects? There were no workshops. They were just shopping. These were a different breed of midnight revellers. Some even looked artsy, unlike the gruff bunch that bulldozes through in the day. It was like discovering a secret society of late night do-it-yourselfers.

If I ever need advice on a project, I will get the best help late at night at this Home Depot. Such a find. Alas, I did not find pre-fab plexiglass shelves. But now I know I can custom make them. This pitches my project to a different level of desire. Not a "buy it, try it, don't like it, return it" effort any more. Custom-make means I have to be sure I want the shelves. Back to rethinking.